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In a place where every game and every possession matters, a lot has been made of Louisville's late-game performances. So, let's look at the numbers and see how Louisville truly fares in the final five minutes of close games.

Louisville is 3-3 in the six close games it's played in conference action, and all six have come against the very teams the Cards must beat in the coming two weeks if they want to receive a favorable seed in the NCAA tournament.

I went back through each of those six games and collected the stats from the final five minutes. Now, I chose those games because they are collectively the best representative of this current Louisville team, which does not have Kevin Ware or Chane Behanan.

What did I find? A team that mightily struggles with offensive execution in the final five minutes of games. In the six games researched, Louisville entered the final five minutes with an average lead of six points. Louisville led Memphis by four and six, respectively, with five minutes left. The Cards led Cincinnati by three and seven, respectively. They led SMU by six and UConn by 10.

Opponents outscored Louisville 12.5 to seven in those final five minutes. Memphis alone outscored Louisville 31-8 in the final five minutes of the teams' two games. Cincinnati outscored Louisville 21-9 in the final five minutes of their two games.

Louisville has only outscored SMU and UConn in the final five minutes of these six close games.

Not only is Louisville shooting just 61.2 percent from the foul line, the Cards are also a woeful 1 of 17 from 3-point range in the final five minutes of these games. They have a troubling 12-to-11 assist-to-turnover ratio, and a turnover percentage of 23.4, which is nearly 9 percentage points above their regular turnover percentage in games.

Against Memphis on Saturday, Louisville was 1 of 9 from the field and missed all seven of its 3-point attempts. Montrezl Harrell's basket at 4:46 was the last time he touched the ball inside the 3-point line on offense. He posted up once after that, but Luke Hancock had an awkward entry-pass angle and Russ Smith had occupied the wing space, so Hancock reversed the ball to the opposite side of the floor.

Now there are some positives here: Louisville becomes an even better offensive rebounding team in the final five minutes of these games, collecting 54.2 percent of its missed shots. But beyond that, it's pretty clear that the Cards need to do something different in the game's most critical stretch.

Here are the numbers for Louisville on offense in the final five minutes:

Stat

Numbers

Pct

FGM-FGA

12 of 36

33%

3PM-3PA

1 of 17

5.9%

Guards

7 of 25

28%

Bigs

5 of 11

45.4%

FTM-FTA

19 of 31

61.2%

TO

11

23.4%

Assists

12

O Reb

13

54.2%

Let's compare that to the numbers for Louisville opponents in the final five minutes. The data isn't exactly mind-blowing. UConn and SMU took a flurry of shots at the end of their losses to Louisville, as you'd expect. The assist-to-turnover ratio is similar to Louisville's.

But here's what sticks out: Opponents have their biggest advantage over Louisville at the free-throw line, when Cincinnati, Memphis, SMU and UConn have combined to shoot 78.6 percent against Louisville. Opponents also get a whopping 66.7 percent of their own missed shots in the final five minutes against Louisville. So, I guess the final five minutes for both teams -- in this case just in games involving Louisville -- involve a loss of defensive rebounding abilities.

The rest of the numbers match up to what Louisville usually does, with the exception of one. Opponents generally shoot 39.7 percent from the field against Louisville, so there's only a slight bump there. But Louisville is turning opponents over fewer times in the final five minutes of these close games. The Cards rely on turnover creation, and typically force turnovers from opponents on 24.6 percent of their possessions. That number dips to 17.4 percent in the final five minutes of these close games.

Stat

Numbers

Pct

FGM-FGA

17 of 38

44.7%

3PM-3PA

3 of 9

33%

Guards

11 of 27

40.7%

Bigs

6 of 11

54.5%

FTM-FTA

33 of 42

78.6%

TO

8

17.4%

Assists

9

O Reb

14

66.7%

Showing Louisville coach Rick Pitino these numbers probably wouldn't surprise him, but I do think he'd want more touches for his bigs, especially (and probably exclusively) for Montrezl Harrell, who has become perhaps Louisville's best offensive weapon of late. He obviously won't create a ton on his own as a 6-foot-8 power forward, but he needs the ball.

Russ Smith and Luke Hancock have had their struggles in recent games, and Chris Jones hasn't proven that he's a reliable option inside the final five minutes. Terry Rozier hasn't really been a factor in terms of scoring, though he did have a few blips of success, like a pair of big free throws against Cincinnati in the first meeting and an assist on Smith's game-winning shot in the second matchup with Cincinnati.

But the numbers show a great disparity in inside-out play -- 25 shots attempted by guards and just 11 attempted by bigs. Harrell talked at length on Saturday about Louisville sinking too much into "one-on-one" stuff and not sticking to set plays. Perhaps he's onto something -- the numbers back it up.